Palni Hills Conservation Council 20th Annual report Introduction The escalating cost of fossil energy over the last year has cast a spell on the forest resources of our hills. The trees at the farms ;village commons' ;roadsides and temple lands are in trouble as the price of fuel wood goes up and customers are switching over from liquefied gas to wood. The felling of trees from forest lands and foothills agricultural land has increased many fold too. This calls for increased output from our tree growing efforts and places strain on the forest and farm resources. Fortunately the rains have been good during the last year and the PHCC managed to plant 280 000 trees. The water position in the six major watersheds we work has improved greatly and current seedlings stock at 17 tree nurseries of the PHCC is over 400 000 seedlings. Hereby the Executive committee that met 11 times during the last year presents its report on the activities for the past year. The Executive committee 1. Mr.J.Nath President 2. Fr.Britto Vice President 3. Mr.N.Natarajan Vice President 4. Ms.Girija Viraraghavan Secretary 5. Mr.R.Kannan Treasurer 6. Ms.Pippa Mukherjee Jt.Secretary 7. Mr.M. S.Viraraghavan Member 8. Mr.Rajagopal Durai Raja Member 9. Mr.Vijay Kumar Johnson Member 10. Mr.Ramachandran Co- Member 11. Mr.Naveoz Mody Co-opted member 12. Mrs.Rebecca Chacko Member 13. Mr.Madhu Ramnath Member 14. Mr.George Roshan Co opted member List of Members 1. Annual Members 24 2. Life Members 179 3. Institutional Members 3 A. Upper Hill Activities 1.Pulvatchiar Watershed The application for watershed treatment of the Pulawatchiar areas has been now pending for too long and the council decided to start work on the areas without waiting for the watershed treatment works. A brief survey among the land owning community pointed out the situation that the farmers, who cultivate temperate vegetables in the fertile and irrigated areas are under mortgage obligations to the vegetable vendors of cities like Madurai and Coimbatore. They are unlikely to grow trees in their lands. Where as the farmers who own lands in the upper reaches of catchment basins will be without water for most of the year and can grow only a crop. They are open and welcome the idea of growing trees. A tree nursery targeting these people has been started at Poondi and has a growing stock of 6000 plants as of now. Though the temperate vegetables are grown with excessive use of chemical fungicides pesticides and fertilizers, and the farmers are always in debt to the vegetable shop owners of towns like Oddanchatram; Coimbatore and Madurai, as the returns are controlled by the city vendors and they are not in a position to switch over to orchard crops due to the financial obligations. The resideues from these lands during monsoon times will find their way in to the drinking water reservoirs situated at the foothills like Kamaraj Sagar, Palar Dam Varadhamanadhi and Manjalar which supply towns like Dindigul; Palani; and Batlagundu towns. 2.Melpallam nursery - Palar Porundhalar Watershed The demand for trees in the Melpallam area has increased again with the spurt in coffee prices. Most farmers who, were cutting down shade trees and switching over to vegetables are now planning to grow coffee again. For meeting the demand we have opened the Melpallam tree nursery again and we have a stock of 7 000 seedlings. The stock comprises coffee seedling and shade tree species. 3. Pallangi Kombai Pallangi Kombai - It is ten years since we operated a nursery at the Pallangi Kombai area. A visit to the area revealed that the farmers there, are eager that we start a nursery there as the seedlings supplied by the Council a decade back are now good shade trees. The 10 year old stands at the old nursery site of Cedrella toona are now providing shade to the coffee. A new nursery to cater to the coffee growers in the area with native shade trees has been just started a the time of writing the report. 4. Pallangi Pallangi - The growing of temperate horicultural crops with grafts based on rootstocks of peach has been started again at Vazhai Kattu Odai. The farmers who are planning to convert their holdings to orchards can now avail themselves with quality peach and avocado seedlings or grafts. The nursery that was closed due to water problems has been restarted and now has a stock of 5600 seedlings. 5. Shola Conservation Nursery Kodaikanal - The shoal seedlings propagation work is proceeding well with good off take of seedlings from household plantings and bungalows. A good development has been the bulk purchase of seedlings from our nurseries for shola regeneration from the forest department. It is learnt that the Forest Department are now slowly removing the pine wattle eucalyptus monocultures at the Upper Palni Hills and are favouring growth of shola vegetation again. This is a welcome move for biodiversity conservation in the wet temperate sholas of Kodaikanal. Last year the tree nursery at our office has produced and marketed 8000 seedlings from the shola conservation work. 6. Kodaikanal Lake water quality monitoring projects The water quality monitoring at the Lake has shown that the waters are affected by many ill informed practices followed by the authorities. Sprinkling of bleaching powder has been practiced without any rationale. As the rains wash the chlorine in to the water fish kills of the tiny Barbus species has been noticed - creating foul smell !! The Dissolved Oxygen levels at the surface are good (within 6-7mg per litre) but the bottom remains poorly oxygenated. The levels of Ammonia and Chlorine are above permissible levels. Visibility as measured by Secchi disc method has been constantly decreasing over the years. It is now averaging only 40 cm as opposed to 1 mt when testing was initiated in the early 90's. The Tamil Nadu Tourism Boat house has no toilets thus the joy riders use the lakeside as open air urinals which again leads to more ammonia being added to the already polluted water. 7. Apiculture project We maintain 25 colonies of Apis cerana at the hills and the last year has been a good one with no occurrence of the dreaded TSBV. This gives us the hope that most of the colonies are resistant to the virus. We now plan to start our queen breeding programme at Kodaikanal with climate and rainfall regime permitting. Earth Day celebrations The PHCC was represented by President and Ms.Girija Viraraghavan at the earth day celebrations on June 5th organized by the Forest Department. B. Middle altitude nurseries and apiaries 1. Siruvattukkadu Kombai The center aims to improve biodiversity at the Parappalar water shed where a viable population of the Grizzled Giant squirrel resides. The centre had reasonable showers and now has stocked 4000 plants for distribution to farmers in the enclave. The lime plantations that were in vogue there are now declining and it is an opportunity to introduce diverse tree based cropping system for the small and tribal farmers there. At the centre there was an evening class for teaching literacy to the tribal children and now due to the poor running of the government aided school, out teacher has been asked to manage the government school, which is attended by some 40 tribal children. Seed collection for many low elevation species is an important activity for this centre apart from playing host to the visitors there who come to see the Grizzled Giant Squirrel. Last year seeds of ebony were collected and this has helped our nurseries stock Diospyros ebunum for growing in institutions like schools and college campuses. 2. Palkakadai Beekeeping Centre The centre was closed down in December 2004 as the water position was not satisfactory and the off take of seedlings was minimal. The beekeeping training project too was suffering as the area had started growing vegetables with intensive use of fossil based chemicals. This curtailed the growth of colonies of Apis cerana indica and led to poor development. Hence it was decided to wind up operations at the centre and look for a better and more receptive farming community at the Pachalur area. 3. Pachaloor nursery and bee keeping centre The beekeeping centre at Kadaisikadu with tribals was started in 2003 with help from the District collectorate who donated some 50 Newton Hives and stipend for the trainees. This activity has now been upgraded in to a nursery to grow coffee as the demand for coffee seedlings is good at the Pachalur area. Further the farmers in the area require shade tree seedlings of diverse native species. The nursery now grows some 4500 coffee seedlings and 1500 seedlings of shade trees. The apiculture programme maintains 13 colonies in Newton hives and 5 colonies in Mulderry hives for honey production and queen multiplication respectively. 4. Patlankadu and Oothu apiaries The beekeeping centre established in 1994 has been working to improve the strain of Apis cerana indica that are resistant to Thai Sac brood virus. The centre provides training for 20 men and women each year in alternative techniques in hive beekeeping. The centre is a place for visitors and has potential to become a spot for community based tourism. The shoal adjacent to the training centre is one of the remnants of evergreen forests in the middle altitudes. There are 42 colonies of Apis cerana indica at the centre in different hives. The trials with cultivation of niger seed was taken up last year in two trial plots and the results were encouraging. It remains for future plans to develop the Guizotia as a viable crop where trees have been cleared and reestablishing shade for growing coffee and prevention from infestation with invasive weeds like lantana and eupatorium are priorities. The Oothuu apiary has been concentrating on Queen Breding - the work of improving the stock of Apis cerana indica is done with breeding new queens to replace aging and less productive queens. The year saw the emergence of 20 new hybrid queens from this apiary. C. Amaravathi Tree Growers' Association project 1. New Name for the project: The project supported and guided by the Danish Forestry Extension for establishing a member owned tree growers association has been in operation from 2002 May. Last year the project was expanded to the Amaravathi area to enlist new members for the association. Thus the project has been rechristened as ATA - that stands for Amaravathi Tree Growers Association. 2. Project office at Udumalpet: The project operates from the same rented premises from the town of Udumalpet. The project office is now equipped with state of the art Digital Xerox; Digital camera and DVD equipment. These are for use of the association when the members are to be given exposure to finer aspects of tree growing. The office serves as a visitors guest house as well as training and meeting place for farmers who wish to grow trees. 3. Project Nursery: The nursery at Andipatti was shut down to make way for a commercial nursery at the Udumalpet Pollachi Highway. The move was to get more members from the Eastern Side of the project area. Further the water position at Andipatti was not satisfactory as the rains were below normal. The nursery gave some 20,000 seedlings to plant in trial and demo plots which is in farmers' fields. The present nursery has a stock of 35,000 seedlings and plans too procure another 7000 seedlings from other sources for taking up the planting work in the coming months. The new nursery will focus on the commercial aspects of tree growing as from a spot with good exposure more visitors will access the services of the ATA. 4. Search for permanent site for ATA nursery A search was done on the highway for a suitable place for outright purchase of land. Land with road frontage and visibility on the National Highway and with adequate water was looked for close to the Amaravathi river bridge. About 3 sites have been narrowed down after evaluating the suitability of nearly 30 potential sites. A final decision on the matter will be made in the last quarter of the year 2005. 5. Personnel capacity building: There have been three technical persons from DFE who have visited and trained the staff at ATA, Udumalpet. Mr.Thorsten Hansen made two visits and helped in framing the byelaws for the new ATA. Mr.Hans Graversgard spent time explaining the salient methods to prune trees to produce knot free timber that has better value for the tree growers. The use of good saws instead of machetes was advised and cutting branches while they are less than 10 cm diameter was advocated. During his second visit Mr.Hans Graversgrard trained staff on better documenting practices and improved on the practical ways in which they have been training tree growers at the trial and demo plots. 6. Educating tree growers; Providing assistance to tree growers in species selection ; cultivation methods and future market potential for the wood and tree based produce that can come off their land within a short time has been the primary focus of the project. For attaining this objective, farmers have been taken on field trips to visit successful tree growers in watersheds that were planted by PHCC in the past where good stands of trees can be seen. Visits to timber shops were undertaken to emphasise the importance of understanding current market trends and price realization for timber and wood produce. The timber shops around the Pollachi region and Dindigul region were the primary targets for this excursion. 7. Marketing survey: A Survey to understand the timber; fuel wood and imported wood availability at Dindigul Udumalpet and Pollachi has been conducted. The results show that there is very little native wood available in Udumalpet and Coimbatore districts and most of the woods are imported from other districts and timbers are from other countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. Perhaps some of the African woods like Pterocarpus angolensis was being palmed off as Andaman Padauk too. This gives a good opportunity for the ATA to grow more wood produce on the members lands to get them substantial incomes. As the cost of wood produced elsewhere will keep going up due to transport costs and reduced availability. According to the DFE within the next two decades there will be no timber coming out of forests in Tropical Countries and most wood and Timber will have to be produced from farm or garden lands. 8. Tree Growing: The thrust of the tree growing is for would be members lands, with service charges for seedlings and planting work being paid for by the growers. This will help in achieving the commercial viability of the ATA and the concept of payment for services by members. Only on land owned by institutions and lands belonging to communities the tree planting work was carried out by the project team. The replacement of dead seedling lost in previous year's tree plantations was earnestly undertaken so as not to lose interest on the demonstration plots. 9. Community welfare activities The project runs an evening school for village children at Andipatti., which is attended by about 35-45 children who are taught by a village youth who is unemployed. The project provided tools for agricultural labour and carpenters who are resource poor. The work of energizing a hand pump was done with the cooperation of the village panchayat. 10. Visit to Successful Tree Growers Association Project The project sponsor Danish Forestry Extension have been running a project at the Terai area of Nepal successfully by forming a tree growers association there. A visit to the Nepal project was sponsored by DFE and the project personnel spent two weeks at the Terai region and learned about the methods and ways in which a tree growers association can be organized in very resource poor communities. 11. Project Steering Committee meetings There have been 8 Project steering committee meetings and all the members of the PSC will form the new Board of the Amaravathi Tree Growers Association. The ATA will be formally registered with the Registrar of Societies at Tirupur during the first week of August 2005. D. Fr.Matthew Environment Centre 1. REUBEN ARBORETUM The Dr.Reuben arboretum that was depleted due to the drought of the last four years has now been cleared of thorny invasives like Barleria and a foot path has been laid so that interested visitors can walk and see 60 different species of trees there. A small earth dam was built for capturing and storing rainwater runoff from the first hairpin bend at the Law's Ghat Road. Though this was built late in the year almost at the end of the North east monsoon, it filled up twice and the water percolated under ground, recharging our borewell. The lost trees have been filled with new ones at the arboretum and this year we hope to complete the work. The tree and beekeeping training centre have been upgraded using a small donation from the Halmstad Teachers group at Sweden who visited the centre during last summer. The beekeepers at the centre have now opened a new apiary at the Manjalar river basin with 10 colonies and are training farmers in the area in to alternative techniques in beekeeping. 2. Ecosystem orientation for school students The centre has provided a two day orientation programme for 160 students from the following four schools. 1. Lakshmi Matriculation School - Madurai - 40students 2. Agnu Sundar Matriculation School - Madurai 3. Government High School - Kallupatti 4. Government High School - Genguvarpatti The orientation is a set of programmes with field work to watch and identify birds and butterflies that visit the forest area adjacent to the centre. The evenings are spent at the dormitory watching video films about the environment. The centre is now equipped with a DVD player and colour television for the purpose. Seed Collection from the Vaigai and Manjalar basin has been a priority activity for the centre to supply the same to the tree seed centre and to other tree growing nurseries of the PHCC. 3. Bio Diversity conservation Tree Nursery The nursery grew and supplied 30,000 tree seedlings to farmers and tree growers in the Manjalar watershed. The seedling mix consisted of about 70 species of trees. As the water position has improved this year we have raised 70,000 seedlings and hope to facilitate planting of some 50,000 seedlings from the stock of over 130 species. E. Community Led Environment Action Network Project With acronym of CLEAN INDIA programme - the focus this year has been to create environmental awareness among students from schools at Kodaikanal; Palani and Udumalpet. The project has 11 schools as members and 352 students are participating in the program with involvement of 12 teachers. 1. The Air and water quality monitoring This was carried out at all the three cities 1. Kodaikanal 2. Palani 3. Udumalpet The results from these indicate that the air over Kodaikanal is qualitatively better compared to Palani and Udumalpet. The content of Sulphur Dioxide and Suspended Particulate Matter are high in the pilgrim and industrial towns of Palani and Udumalpet. But the levels of ozone were high even at Kodaikanal during the month of May as the vehicular traffice increases. 2. Participating Communities The testing sites number 13 at the Kodaikanal Area 16 at Palani and another 13 at Udumalpet cluster. Thus the programme has created awareness among 42 village or semiurban settlements in the above three urban settlements. The target group consists of around 10000 community members The project has published a Tamil Brochure on Air; Water pollution and Solid Waste Management for schools students. The students from each school are taken for a day's programme where they are explained the basic concepts in water and air quality. Role of forests in ecosystem and the various levels of consumers in the ecosystem. Monitoring the air they breath and the drinking water at source is the core of the project, and the whole exercise is done with community members participating. 3. Methods The selected students from each school participate in the one day teach in for each month of the term. These include field visits to the drinking water source for each school and testing the water for 7 parameters. Birdwatching and Butterfly identification in the selected watersheds is an activity all students participate with enthusiasm. The students are associate with community for tree growing; solid waste management and water purification systems. Each school selects a community where dustbins are placed for separating plastic and biodegradable waste. The composted bio waste is used for growing medicinal plants for home remedies and tree growing effort by the school with the community. The community tree planting programme has been taken up at Palani where some 450 tree seedling have been planted within 4 schools premises. 4. Workshops Three workshops of two days each were organized at each of the cities for the participating communities teachers and students. Further to promote understanding among the students a workshop was organized at Palani for mutual sharing of the results of the environmental monitoring at the hills and plains. F. Athoor Tree Growing centre 1. Shelter Belt Tree Planting in Orchards The centre's tree growing activities have been targeted at farmers in the Athoor Kannivadi block. The tree growing has been to provide farmers with grafted Gooseberry (amla) and multipurpose tree seedlings for planting as shelterbelts. The nursery functions from the 2 acre plot of land given by Dindigul Municipality for the purpose. The main thrust of the programme has been the provision of quick growing timber trees like Gmelina arborea ;Swietenia macrophyla and fencing species like Carissa carandas. Last year the centre managed to facilitate the growing of 73000 tree seedlings ; grafts and Jatropha curcas plants. It is the 3rd year since we have started to provide grafts to the farmers who take multipurpose seedlings for planting. The grafts are provided free of cost but farmers are guided to take good care of the planted fields. Some of the fields in the 3rd year have started giving the first gooseberry fruits from the plantations. 2. Biodiesel plants The centre also provides Jatropha curcas plants to farmers to grow as hedges for production of fruits. During the last year 25000 plants of the non edible oil seed with potential for manufacture of biodiesel were distributed to agriculturists in the area. Those plants that were provided with irrigation have started to produce a crop within 12 months. The centre has 12 colonies of Apis cerana indica which are primarily used for queen rearing. We maintain 30 colonies of the dammar bee Trigona iridipennis has been kept at the centre for a number of years. This year, farmers' for pollinating their amla orchards have purchased about 15 colonies from the nursery and we have restocked the centre with colonies from the wild. 3. Kannivadi nursery and bee projects The nursery and beekeeping training centre has been active in training Tribals from Dhoni Malai in beekeeping with alternative hives and techniques for queen rearing. The tribals have hives that are provided by other NGO's and government schemes but are unable to get colonies to keep in the hives. The PHCC trained beekeeper will help them use the hives and Hill variety of Apis cerana indica to produce honey and get extra income. 4. Roofrainwater harvesting works Further the tribals do not have a safe and dependable water supply scheme for them as the hamlet is located on a steep slope and the stream which gives them water runs dry for at least three months of the year. The hamlet situated at 1200 metres altitude gets low intensity rainfalls of 10-15mm often and by using the tile roofs of their houses and plastic storage tanks of 200 its capacity considerable rainwater could be harvested for use as drinking water. The idea was very much appreciated by the JHT that supports the centre and its activities. Thus 40 tribal families have been provided with two tanks of 200 litres capacity each to collect and use rainwater for their drinking and domestic purposes. The system works well and has come as a boon to the women who otherwise had to trek through steep footpath to the stream to collect water. Now they have water at the doorstep for half the days in a month. We propose to implement similar schemes at the SVK Kombai enclave for the tribals resident there in the coming year, if the need for the same arises due to poor rainfall. The centre last year trained 20 women and men from the farming community nearby in sustainable management of Apis cerana indica at their farms that grow coconut and mixed crops. G. Khudhirayar Tree growing centre The Khudhirayar dam completely dried up during the summer of 2004 but the North East monsoon has brought better prospects and the nursery is stocking seedlings for the coming season. Last year the nursery distributed 15000 seedlings to farming community in the catchment basin. The centre has been specialising on the rearing of the Dammer bee, Trigona irridi- pennis and has provided 35 colonies to farmers for pollinating their Amla orchards. The centre keeps 20 colonies of Apis cerana indica and has been training 10 women in to sustainable beekeeping techniques. The centre has now one new nursery at the Varadhamanadhi basin to cater to the farmers in the area. The current stock at the nursery is 25000 seedlings at Khudhirayar and 12500 at Varadhamanadhi. The centre conducts an evening study for the tribal children and 35 pupils attend the class each day. H. Viruveedu tree growing centre The centre supported by the Intercooperation, Bangalore has been instrumental in spreading biodiversity in farm lands by growing diverse tree species in farmers fields. Last year the centre also collected and sold 3 000 kg of neem and jatropha seeds to interested farmers. The project facilitated the digging of five farm ponds in farmers fields in the Viruveedu area. The project also installed model drip irrigation systems for Moringa and jasmine crops in two acre plots belonging to resource poor farmers. The tree nursery facilitated the growing sale and planting of 53 000 seedlings of which Jatropha curcas constituted 11 000. The tree nursery has a current stock of 58 300 seedlings for supply to farmers in the Vaigai Basin during the coming year. The centre maintains 42 colonies of Apis cerana indica in Newton and Mud Top Bar Hives and has been able to graft 12 new queens in the February swarming season of the year 2005. The centre provided training to 25 farmers in the area for maintaining colonies of Apis cerana indica at their households. The centre collects wild honey from the Honey Hunters belonging to the Moopar community of tribes and last year collected processed and sold some 2500 kg of Honey to consumers. I. Field Biology Course Four students from St.Olaf College Minnesota spent a month at the various field centres of the PHCC doing their field Biology course. They have submitted the report on each of the selected subjects which are 1. Beekeeping in the Palni Hills 2. Water Quality of six streams at Kodaikanal 3. Chemical analysis of emissions from Jatropha and diesel mix 4. Water quality and Health at Kodaikanal While the students were visiting the Berijam Lake it was observed that Water Lillies have been planted there "reportedly" for ornamental purposes by the Forest Department. This is a retrograde step as the spread of the same will spell death of the lake and reduction in water supply to the Lake. J. Symposium for Beekeeping Development "Symposium on Potential for Development of Apis cerana indica at the Western Ghats" The PHCC and Danish Beekeepers Federation organized a four day meet to discuss the potential and constraints for the development of Apis cerana indica at the Western Ghats For four days from 24th to 28th of Novembet 2004. The meet was attended by representatives from Danish Beekeepers Federation. The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Coimbatore, Horiculture College Periyakulam and Karnataka Agriculture University Bangalore sent their entomology department professors to participate in the meet. K. Tsunami affected Coastal areas survey A team of PHCC supervisors and nursery managers visited with Mr.Madhu the tsunami affected coastal area. They visited the worst hit communities of Velanganni and Nagapattinam. For comparison, the team undertook a visit to the Pitchavaram area where the force of the waves were less damaging as the mangrove forests there took the force out of the tsunami. The team felt that there is scope for setting up a series of nurseries for supply of species of littoral and mangrove origin at the coast. Consequently a proposal has been forwarded to a Dutch donor for funding a coastal green belt project to be started in the coming year. The preliminary concept of PHCC expertise in species diverse nurseries has been accepted by the donor and we hope get a sanction for the project towards the end of the year. L. Oddukkam Tree Nursery and Seed centre The two nurseries at Oddukam and Reddiapatti are increasing their output of seedlings each year. The seedlings out put was 85 000 comprising of 70 species of trees. The centre has had good rains and the water position has improved thus paving the way for increasing the number of seedlings - currently the nurseries put together have a stock of 110 000 seedlings. The Tree Seed Centre collected and sourced seeds of 73 species of trees and the total quantity collected is 2200 kg. At the neighboring Natham range of mountains the farmers are growing traditional varieties of minor cereals like Thinai and Samai. About 50 kg of the same were collected and distributed to farmers in the Dindigul area for trials in their dryland farms. M. Conclusion: The Council has managed to bring up the number of trees grown from 200 000 to over 275 000 during the last year. It is hoped that the uptrend in rainfall pattern this year too will help us grow more trees. Our future efforts will be directed towards mitigating specific threats to the ecosystem from demand centres like dyeing and tea processing units in neighboring districts. As the cost of fossil fuel systems escalate and the populist subsidies are dismantled industry and farming alike will become more dependent on wood fuels in the future. Hence it is important that we build on the experience of the last 17 years in tree growing to meet and mitigate the threat to our forests. The following partners have contributed to the implementation of the various projects. Our sincere thanks to them and we seek their continued cooperation. Our staff and trained nursery workers have helped us in the projects and our sincere thanks to all of them. 1. Both Ends, Netherlands 2. Joe Homan Trust, United Kingdom 3. Danish Forestry Extension, Denmark 4. Danish Beekeepers Federation, Denmark 5. Inter cooperation - Bangalore, 6. International Union for Conservation of Nature, Netherlands 7. Development Alternatives, New Delhi 8. Forgotten Children. USA 9. St.Olaf College, Minnesotta 10. Halmstad Teachers Group, Sweden 11. Mr.Peter Cormack, USA We are grateful to our Auditors M/s Illango and Madhavan who have efficiently audited our accounts for the year and our sincere thanks to them. Date : 11-8-2005 Mr.Nath Station : Kodaikanal President